A 'Sentinels' SNAFU XmenTS crossover
by Bumpkin
Summary: Mutants and Sentinels, Sentinels and Guides ... mix, shake and “Oh man!”


Disclaimer: Not mine…

Description: Mutants and Sentinels, Sentinels and Guides – mix, shake and "Oh man!!!"

A 'Sentinels' SNAFU (X-men/TS crossover)  
by Marns AKA Bumpkin  
Rated: PG

x-X-x

Coming up to the city limits where they had tracked the large mutant-hunting robot that they had been following was a large sign proclaiming 'Welcome to Cascade', Wolverine was less than impressed. Sitting back further in the passenger seat of the convertible he growled, "I don't get why we have to follow these dumb things – it ain't our responsibility t'make sure all the mutants of the world are safe."

Ororo sighed and Remy threw her a commiserating glance from where he was perched in the middle of the backseat, you couldn't pay him enough to be in her place. Leading an X-team was not his idea of a good time, but Stormy was better than old stick-in-the-mud Cyke. She tried to explain again in her lilting African accented contralto, "Logan, just because some mutants are not obvious and are able to hide in plain sight doesn't make them any less worthy of our protection. In some ways they need it even more since they have no ways to cope with being seen as different, can you understand that?"

Logan just grumbled, "Yeah, yeah, yeah… help the helpless - I got it," eager to drop the subject and get to the scrapping. A fight that was already in progress from what they could hear from where they were driving. They quickly found a parking spot and easily covered the remainder of the hike on foot.

By now the three X-Men teammates were deep into the city itself and it was only a small distance for the trio to see who had engaged the Sentinel. To say they were taken aback when they saw it was the police would be an understatement. Remy was the one to give voice to their collective misgivings.

"Mon amies, dis could be a bad scene. De tree of us are not 'zactly friendly wit' de cops heh? We are after all two t'ieves, even if 'Ro is officially retired, and a …" Remy verbally fumbled and turned to look at Wolverine over his dark glasses as if trying to decide what to call his hirsute companion. He smirked and said with a grin, "Well, I dunno what 'zactly Wolvy 'ere is, but whatever it might be – I don' t'ink interacting closely wit' de cops would be in our best interest. P'rhaps we should give it a pass n'est pas?"

Wolverine scowled at his teammate's sly digs but didn't bother to say anything. Remy, the prince of the New Orleans Thieves Guild, had given voice to a valid concern. He really didn't need the stress of dealing with any overeager police, not when he was only out on a mission of mercy – none of them did. All three of the teammates had good reason to avoid the police really, but that's when they saw who the targets were, and things changed.

"Merde! De t'ing is targeting a pair of cops!" Remy burst out in shock.

"Eyah, fer some reason I don't think they'll give us a whole lotta hassle if we help 'em." Wolverine's dry statement still held enough smugness to make Gambit smirk. Ororo just sighed at the men's antics but waved them regally forwards.

As they moved in to get into a better position to fight Logan started to snicker, Remy shot his shorter companion a questioning look. Logan tapped his ear in answer and Gambit tried to hear through the crashing and gunfire what had amused his friend. They were close enough that it was soon easy enough and Gambit too started to snicker as he heard the snarking going on between a few of the detectives, one being one of the targets.

"Y'know, I t'ink I jes might like dese cops."

x-X-x

It was a pretty normal day at first for Blair Sandburg, former grad student and police observer, now a full time detective and partner to Jim Ellison. Another detective who just happened to be the living embodiment of an ancient tribal guardian called a 'Sentinel' as well as a former army ranger. They were at a large and rather gruesome crime scene along with many of the members of their department and officers of several other departments as well.

The partners had been discretely doing their 'thing' while the other personnel on the scene had been oh so politely pretending not to notice, as per usual, when all of a sudden a booming mechanical voice assailed them over the whine of decelerating turbine engines. "Abnormal genetic sequences detected, two subjects confirmed carriers of possible mutation of x-gene, initiating capture sequence."

Everybody on the scene looked up in shock. There was a chorus of stupefied muttering from the crowd.

"My God!"

"Wouldja lookit that thing…"

"Its bloody huge!"

"It's one of those mutant hunting robots… wonder who it's talking about?"

A series of muffled thwaps followed that particular statement along with a soft, "ow!"

Overhearing the last exchange, Jim couldn't help himself - he smirked. Even with the imminent threat of the hulking robot and the attendant danger he and his guide were facing because of it, he still couldn't stop the smile from crossing his face. People could be so absurd. Then he had no more time for humor because the giant bucket of bolts opened fire, not only on him but on Blair too, forcing them to dive in opposite directions for cover.

"Shit!" Blair yelped as the second blast shot in his direction came a bit too close to a rather sensitive area of his body.

"You okay Chief?" Jim yelled from where he had managed to secure some cover for himself.

"Yeah, fine. It's just a good thing those things are programmed to capture rather than kill. Those are stun blasts it's shooting, not lethal but damned uncomfortable if you catch my drift." As he spoke he was halfheartedly rubbing his butt and scowling up at the large robot. Jim snickered. He'd seen the disgusted look and the glare directed at the automaton by his partner, along with the self-ministration of the afflicted area after he'd focused his vision and piggybacked it to his hearing to double-check on his guide. Jim was about to tease him about being an 'overly sensitive kind of guy' when things began to really go to hell around them, distracting him.

The other detectives and officers present had scattered for their own cover when the machine was busy targeting Jim and Blair, and now they started to shoot from where they had gone to ground. They weren't about to let some huge honking contraption take their 'Professor' and 'Sentinel' anywhere. It was going down, they would see to that.

Problem was, the gunshots didn't seem to be affecting it much. Jim and Blair were still ducking stun blasts and not really managing to get any shots of their own off. Stress was building and things were beginning to look bad, they needed something to break the stalemate. The detectives of Major Crime could always be counted on to step up to the plate.

Henri Brown, known to his friends and colleagues as H, yelled out, "Damn Hairboy, I knew there was something hinky about Jim,"

Rafe interrupted his flamboyant partner to yell derisively, "Hell Brown, we all knew there was something hinky about Jim, it's the best 'worst-kept' secret of the precinct for crying out loud!"

Brown manfully ignored his suave colleague and just kept talking, "but you too?" Blair just threw the other detective a dirty look and H kept hamming it up, "C'mon, you've already been outed now, thanks to the rampaging robotnik here. So you can tell us – what's your freaky mutant power?"

Blair rolled his eyes as he dodged another blast and yelled back. "H, shut up! Save your breath for fighting this stupid thing. It's not like it will listen to reason. Quit shooting off your mouth and shoot your damn gun, its by far more useful!"

Brown crowed, "Yeah babe, that's it! Your mutant power is your silver tongue! I knew there was something out of the ordinary about the way you could always talk your way out of any situation and I'm not going to even start about your unnatural luck with the ladies!"

Rafe yelled over to his partner while squeezing off a couple more shots, "Jeez man, get over it already – if you want to find something to blame your less than stellar track record with women on, just look in the mirror. It's not like I have any problems in that department either." Then the well-dressed young detective had to duck again as a piece of debris went flying his way.

Blair laughed and called back, "Yeah H, if that is my so called 'mutant power' then it's hereditary, since it's something I share with most of my maternal family, and not a sex linked trait either if you remember my mother. Now would you quit with the worthless speculation that my phenomenal success with the opposite sex is a mutant power and just help us man!"

"Everybody! GET BACK!" Jim yelled out suddenly as the sky darkened rapidly and the wind kicked up. Then there was a huge flash of lightning and an eardrum-shattering boom of thunder in rapid succession of each other.

The large robot tottered where it stood like it was deciding if it was going to fall or not. The choice was taken from it as four pinkly glowing playing cards soared over the gathered cops heads to impact with the knee joints, where they exploded, sending the giant machine toppling to the ground.

Blair wasted neither the opportunity nor time wondering where their strange assist had come from, he simply powered into motion. He called out as he rushed towards the fallen robot, "Jim quick, tell me where the power pack on this thing is."

x-X-x

The three X-Men watched in stunned amazement as the young longhaired detective pulled the power leads from the main power and the back-ups after being directed to where they were unerringly by the taller detective. Then he quickly pulled open the panel they knew held the transmitting module and back up CPU. He fiddled with something, reattached its power cable for barely a minute before unhitching it again, and then when that was done he closed everything and sagged to the ground. Eyes wide they watched as another cop approached the younger one sitting on the ground and his friend still standing beside him.

"So Professor, you manage to send back something to scramble what they got in the last hour or so?" The young cop's eyes slitted open to look at the laughing black cop in front of him.

"Shut up H, you are sooo not being helpful right now. And yes, of course, or I wouldn't have sat down," the younger man groused. The short, curly haired detective groaned as he got back to his feet. "Man, I'm never wanting to do anything like that again. That really sucked." It was such an understatement that none of the X-Men could help themselves, they laughed, snickered and snorted respectively. The tall detective with piercing blue eyes who had also been a target just shook his head at his friend's words. But his attention had been drawn to them and he looked at them with a question in his eyes.

"What do the X-Men need with Cascade's finest?" he asked.

Storm, Gambit and Wolverine had been standing to the side, out of the way of the main clean up, politely waiting to be acknowledged by the two police detectives the robot had been after. Their laughter at the younger detective's understatement had effectively brought them to official attention. Official attention that apparently knew who they were even, and while no one seemed to be in a rush to arrest them, it didn't mean they wouldn't at some moment in the near future. But the X-Men still needed to talk to the two detectives since they had been targeted, and find out if they knew why and what they had been targeted for, talent-wise, and if they could control those talents. Ororo made a high sign to Gambit that signaled to him that he should start to flood the area with his charm - it always seemed to facilitate negotiations. They needed to keep things peaceful.

Remy did as he was bid but didn't get very far, he had barely started before a gentle voice sounded in his mind, but outside his personal shields, 'Oh no you don't, we'll be influenced by your words only, hmmm?' and a secondary shield was imposed around his mind from an outside source. It was unprecedented; nothing or no one had ever been able to contain his charm before, not even Professor Xavier. Remy's surprise must have been obvious enough to show on his face because both Ororo and Logan were staring at him. He shrugged helplessly, made the signs for no charm and no help, hoping that Ororo would get the message. She did.

Turning back to the police, they saw that their numbers had multiplied. Including the two they had waited to talk to they were now facing three black men, three white men, and one white woman. Storm stepped back slightly alarmed. The young curly haired detective seemed to sense her fear and moved to disarm it, "Look, no one here is looking to arrest you guys. We know you're not the bad guys, no matter what propaganda they spout in the news – and to even make things a bit friendlier, I'll do a quick round of introductions so you're not feeling things are so one-sided with us knowing who you are and you not knowing who we are."

He smiled engagingly and offered up, "I'm Detective Blair Sandburg, and my grump of a partner here is Detective Jim Ellison." The tall blue-eyed man with the buzz cut standing beside him grunted. Blair ignored him and continued as he pointed towards the black cop they had originally seen and a dapperly dressed white man beside him. "The goofball with no fashion sense and the fashion plate beside him over there, are Detectives Brian Rafe and Henri Brown. Hint, the one with style is Rafe." The two introduced waved at the visiting mutants with small smiles on their faces.

Next Blair pointed out the woman and the short, plump, older black man. "Then we have Inspector Megan Connor, our exchange officer from New South Wales and beside her, Captain Joel Taggart, formerly of the bomb squad, now back to working as a mere detective." Again they got little waves, but the smiles would only be classifiable as beaming.

Last, Blair stood in front of the towering black man in glasses and grinned. "This really big guy is Captain of Major Crimes, our unit, Simon Banks." He made as if to pat the captain on his chest and got a playful swat to his curls for his temerity making everyone laugh at his over exaggerated antics when he played at ducking. Feeling how the mood had eased, Blair turned back to face the trio to ask. "Now what is it that we can help you with?"

Ororo, grateful for the young detective's diplomacy, regally nodded her head. "It is a pleasure to make your acquaintance, Detectives, Captains. You know we are X-Men - I am called Storm; my teammates are Gambit and Wolverine. It was my lightning and Gambit's kinetically charged cards that initially took down the robot you were battling. We were staying because we needed to know if you understood the significance of being targeted by such a one as these?"

All the police facing them looked tense and dangerous at her question. Jim answered her question cautiously, "Yes, we're aware of 'why' we might have been targeted."

Ororo sighed, at least that was one worry out of the way. Now for the next possible hiccup. "Then my only other question would be, do you need any assistance in coping with that 'why'? If you don't, you don't and I don't need to know why you were targeted, but if you do – there are several schools that we sponsor that you could go to…" she let her voice trail off. She was mortified. She had been babbling, and making a total hash of a speech she had given endless times. For some unknown reason, something had been making her feel like a wire strung too tight.

She felt like she might have part of the answer when almost as one, the gathered police had relaxed at her words. Ororo blinked. She glanced over at Remy and Logan, and found both were looking rather wryly amused. She guessed that they might have known what had been bothering the others by when they relaxed, but for the life of her, she couldn't figure it out.

Blair spared her from too much introspection by saying, "No, no worries there. We have everything well in hand er, talent-wise. Frankly, we never expected to ping on anything like that thing's radar since we're not exactly mutants."

"Not a mutant?" Remy spoke up in disbelief as he mentally pushed at the barrier erected to keep his charm in. Blair flinched. "I t'ink dat we might have diff'rent def'nitions of mutant mon ami. From where Gambit stand, y'qualify f'certain."

Blair was obviously flustered when Gambit's outburst made him the center of attention, from both the two other X-Men and his co-workers. The speculation clear in their eyes, all except for Jim of course, he was well aware of his guide's talents.

"What? Why is everybody looking at me like that?" Blair burst out.

"We still wanna know what your whammy is kid," H said with a grin. "And these guys might actually get you to spill it where we can hear it. Why, what did you think was going on?"

"Crooked government projects actually getting funding that could be better put to use elsewhere?" Blair snapped back giving the heap of metal at his feet a kick. "Specially since the damn things are obviously faulty and yet still have been abandoned to be some kind of loose cannon witch-hunters over all of North America."

The three X-Men blinked with surprise at the vitriol-laced, politically slanted rapid-fire answer the young detective had spouted in reply, seemingly off the cuff. They were alone in their shock though, the other detectives it seemed were used to such things coming from their youngest coworker, as they just laughed.

Blair redirected them to the matter at hand, "Seriously, Jim and I, are not technically mutants. If you examined our DNA you wouldn't find any evidence of the x-gene per se, although you would find that our DNA is subtly different from the standard. Just happens in our particular situation its more a case of elution than evolution. We're something called a Guardian Pair -"

Ororo broke in, "Goddess! A Guardian Pair? In this day and age? How fascinating, and of course our schools wouldn't be any help, I mean I only know a little bit from stories I managed to hear as a child from the elders of the tribe I lived amongst in Africa."

"Really, your tribe had stories?" Blair asked. Storm nodded and Blair began to steer her away while asking, "Do you mind if I ask you to tell me what you remember?"

"Aannnd Hairboy's off, with the pretty woman even, and we are left in the dark yet again." H grumped. "There is no justice in this world, I tell ya, no justice at all."

Everybody laughed. Jim decided to take pity on his poor co-workers and the remaining two X-Men and finish Blair's explanation his way. "In the old days certain tribes would be lucky to have two warriors who working together kept them safe and fed. One had expanded senses, and was more overtly aggressive – me – and the other would generally be the tribe's medicine man or shaman, many with some esoteric talents of their own, mostly mental in nature – Blair. Physical and psychological together, not entirely without some flaws that I'm not getting into, but pretty hard to beat back in those days."

"Hell, still pretty hard to beat in the here and now from the record you two have managed to rack up Jim." Simon snarked in a rumble and was rewarded with another round of laughter.

Jim made a face at his grinning boss and said "Yeah well, we are modern men y'know. We have managed to adapt – at least somewhat. Blair only said elution, not regression to the Jurassic era."

Megan in a sotto voice designed to be overheard, "Yeah, uh-huh, that's why Blair isn't always calling Jimbo there a caveman, is it?" Everyone laughed.

"Hey, at least I am only a caveman in attitude, not appearance. Unlike certain little fuzzy teddy-bear like anthropologists!" Jim decried in his own defense, more laughter was shared by those present.

Gambit added in with a sly look and a smirk at his remaining companion, "Or certain feral mutants eh mon amis?" Logan growled, which just made everyone laugh all that much harder.

Blair had steered Storm back to the jovial group as he had finished picking her brain of all that she remembered back from her time among the tribes about Guardian Pairs. They arrived just as everyone began to quiet down again. They stood there for a bit, just awkwardly trying to figure out what to do next. This really wasn't anything that either group was used to dealing with in the normal run of things after all. Though Gambit did manage to catch the young shaman's eye and motion towards his head. Blair blushed and Gambit heard a quiet muttered 'sorry, forgot' as the mental over-shield lifted. Blair of course couldn't let the awkward silence stand, and so he asked, "So, what's next?"

The three mutants just looked at each other and shrugged. Storm, as the official team leader answered, "Nothing, you don't need our help – obviously – and after you sent that scrambled signal back from the disabled Sentinel Robot, I don't think you are going to have any more trouble from them…"

"Wait," Blair broke in. "What did you call the robot?"

"A Sentinel Robot." Storm replied. Then she and Gambit and Wolverine watched in stunned amazement as the easygoing young man they had met seemed to go off the deep end. Granted, the rest of the cops surrounding them had made small coughing sounds at the name too, but nothing at the level Blair was treating them to.

Storming around in circles and jabbing at the air with his hands as he ranted, you could tell the man used to teach, or at the very least was a practiced orator. "No way! I can't believe it! What else can the government mess up or otherwise sully with their twisted ideas? The best title, best word – ruined – used up on a bunch of malfunctioning buckets of bolts that couldn't live up to the name if their programming was even half decent! It's not fair! ARGH!"

It was a bemused group that watched as the young police detective totally forgot about the people he had been talking to and began to walk away muttering to himself. They could barely hear him as he debated with himself, "Hmm, just gonna have to find something else to use as a qualifying name. Lets see – Watchman is always a good one, and I guess that Guide could still work with it, or there is always the Guardian of the Guardian Pair…"

End


End file.
